Superdome managment aims to enhance emergency electrical system

First meeting since Super Bowl power outage

A partially-darkened Mercedes-Benz Superdome, as photographed during a power outage that stalled Super Bowl XLVII.

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A partially-darkened Mercedes-Benz Superdome, as photographed during a power outage that stalled Super Bowl XLVII.

Superdome management is looking at ways to improve the electrical system inside the dome during emergency situations and during temporary outages like the 34-minute black out during Super Bowl XLV11 on Feb. 3.

The Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District on Wednesday had its first regular meeting since the Super Bowl incident. The Senior Vice President of SMG, the company that manages the Superdome, updated the group on the independent study being done on the power outage, and also recommended a study of his own.

"This might not have been our fault, but it became our problem," Doug Thornton said in his recap of the events on Super Bowl night.

It's a problem that came during one of the most high-profile events in sports. The Super Bowl blackout, which is thought to have been caused by a faulty relay device installed by Entergy, cut half of the stadium's lights delaying the game for more than 30 minutes.

"Apparently, that relay was either defective or set improperly. That's what the forensic study is going to reveal, but that seems to be the probable cause," Thornton explained in his report to the Board.

Thornton noted that Superdome staff and crew conducted emergency preparations weeks ahead of Super Bowl XLVII, as they do with any large-scale event. He said they were prepared to handle the incident because they conducted drills and practiced handling a power outage ahead of time.

Entergy and SMG hired a Utah-based forensic engineer to do an independent investigation into the cause of the outage. That analysis got under way more than a week ago.

Thornton said he is ready to launch a separate study of his own into the emergency generator and emergency power system at the dome.

"It's unrelated to the power outage incident, but we feel it's appropriate because we had the power outage incident. We feel it's appropriate to examine the emergency systems in here," he explained.

Thornton said the current system works properly, but he would like to add certain operating functions in the dome to the emergency power system -- things like score boards, video boards, coaches headsets, as well as escalators, elevators and water pumps for toilets.

"The analysis that we're talking about Wednesday is something we've been thinking about doing for a long time, and that's expanding the emergency system.

It has no relationship whatsoever to the power outage during the Super Bowl other than the fact that we went on the emergency generator system when that outage occurred," he added.

Thornton said the systems that weren't able to function during the outage should be able to continue functioning on the emergency power system should a similar incident happen in the future.

The LSED has approved appropriating up to $100,000 for a study of possible enhancements of the stadium's emergency power systems. Thornton said the current system meets and exceeds some industry standards.

Thornton said he hasn't been given a timeline on when the independent study into the power outage will be completed, but he expects it could take a matter of weeks for it to wrap up.